Jola

The Jola, Dyola, Diola, or Yola (people) reside primarily on the Atlantic coast between the southern banks of the Gambia River, the Casamance region of Southern Senegal, and the northern part of Guinea-Bissau. Diola society has long been characterized by regional diversity.

The cultivation of rice is perhaps the oldest economic activity, but Diola people are also skilled in other traditional economic activities, such as fishing, farming groundnuts, taping palm wine, and processing palm oil. They also raise cows, pigs, goats, chickens, sheep, and ducks. They are skilled at crafts such as basket weaving, pottery, and house building.

Hundreds of years before the introduction of Christianity or Islam, the Diola people believed in Emit or Ata Emit (Person of the sky) as the Creator God. The Esulalu, a cogroup of Diola people, say that Emitai, the Supreme Being of the sky, created the Earth, its peoples, and various types of religious paths for different peoples to seek spiritual assistance in resolving the problems of human existence. Emitai created and continues to create various types of spirit shrines called ukine that serve as intermediaries between the Diola and their Supreme Being.

Adebayo Adesanya (a Yoruba writer), John S. Mbiti, and others depict the Creator God as manifested in all elements of nature in traditional African philosophy. Religion, social theory, land law, medicine, birth, and death are all interrelated. Hence, for traditional Africans, there is no division between sacred and secular. Although there are differences in the nuances of language among the Diola people, general themes emerge in terms of religious and political practices. For example, one major theme that emerges is that the political system is based on collective consciousness totally linked to the religious belief of supernatural spirits known as Bakin, Eneerti, and Mandinka Jalang. Before Islamization of the northern Diola, each extended family maintained a shrine called bekin or enaati, depending on the region.

Thousands of years ago in African societies, animals, birds, and reptiles were recognized as double or twin spirits of human beings. These twin spirits were established as a major component of a cultural system in Africa. J. David Sapir describes the Diola-Kujamaat double or twin system as a “totemic system.” Totemic doubles (human/animal doubles) are called an ewúúm (pl. siwúúm), which literally means “result of transformation.” Sapir makes it clear that ewúúm only refers to the animal double and not reincarnation. Some animal doubles are antelopes, leopards, monkeys, snakes, lizards, and, on rare occasions, a hyena or a crocodile; in the bird family, vulture, and in the fish family, the biting fish.

Doubles are always the same sex, that is, men's double are males and women's doubles are females. Men's doubles include antelopes, leopards, and monkeys that live in the bush, whereas women's doubles include antelopes, lizards, and snakes that reside in the residential compound. According to Ogotemmêli, the late Dogon priest from Mali, “every human family was part of a long series of creatures.” When a human is born, somewhere an animal (the human's twin) is born. Ogotemmêli's twin animal was the antelope.

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